


Infinite Potential

by tepalixed



Series: Infinite Engineering [1]
Category: Infinity Train (Cartoon)
Genre: 3D Printed Onions, A programmer saw someone literally hacking reality and didn't immediately explode with questions???, Cartoon Physics, Critical Thinking, Episode: s01e10, Exploiting Fictional Physics, Fix-It, Gen, Saving the World, Tulip Doesn't Suddenly Forget To Ask How The Train Works Once She Finds The One Person Who Knows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-18 21:14:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20319595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tepalixed/pseuds/tepalixed
Summary: Tulip, one of the rare protagonists born with the power of critical thinking, remembers to use it once she reaches the engine.When life gives you a train with infinite lemons, make infinite lemonade and end world hunger.





	Infinite Potential

Tulip stepped towards the swirling yellowish portal that would take her off this stupid train and back to her house. "Well, see ya!" she waved, and turned around to take the step that would send her home.

Then she paused, an idea percolating within her head. Then she turned back around. "Hold on. One-One, you're the conductor now, right? If you made all those cars, and you made this portal just now, whatever goes through this portal will head back to my house?"

"Yes!" said One-One. "Including any leftover inner pain."

"And everything would still work there the same as it does here?"

Amelia spoke up from her spot on the ground. "I think it would. The train makes everything real. How do you think I programmed that mech suit?"

Tulip's mind was excitedly putting pieces together. "Wait, then before I go back home, One-One, remember how that crossword room had a flying letter stamping machine? Would that work in the real world too?"

"I don't see why not?" said Atticus, "I, after all, am living proof that things can survive outside the cars they were born in."

"So if I bring it through the portal, boom, I could fly around? I'd have a real flying machine?"

"Yup!" said One-One. "It's not like this train is just in your mind or something," His eyes drooped. "That would render our friendship meaningless."

"So cool!" Tulip let herself think for a moment. A flying machine! In real life! That would be the best! She paused. It was kind of a selfish request though. If only there was a way to, like, help people...

"Amelia, you were making train cars from here, right? If I want to make, like, a computer that can fold up into a square that fits in your pocket so you can take it places, could I just make a car with whatever I wanted, then bring it with me through this portal?"

Amelia's brow furrowed. She'd been through far too many emotional revelations for one day. The train's powers weren't quite infinite, but they did get asymptotically close. "I... don't see why not," she said. "Assuming One won't stop you."

Tulip's eyes lit up. "So I could just make anything? What about, like, a 3D printer that prints onions out of air so we'd have tons of food and nobody would starve? Or anything else I wanted? There's so many things that could help!"

Atticus's face did that cute head sideways flop. "Indeed! Think of the ways this could benefit my people! Imagine a very large sponge so that my people would be able to stave off a water emergency were the need to arise in the future."

Tulip turned to One-One. "Sure. Or what about a healing gun? Shoot someone and it automatically heals any problems they have!"

"The inherent violence of guns..." Sad-One mused. "...hijacked for a noble cause!" Glad-One concluded. "I could make that! My mum can do anything! The possibilities are infinite!"

"And the giant flying monsters!" Tulip interjected. "They were stealing my, uh, youngness from me? life force? Whatever. They were making me old. So if they can make me old, we can study them and figure out how to reverse it and make people young, and then doctors could use it for sick people!"

She turned to the yellow doorway standing behind her. "Also, this is a portal! A real-life portal! Can you make a portal between, like, my home and Oshkosh, or is it just from somewhere there and the train? Because then you could make tons of those portals and then nobody would need to drive ever again and the planet would be saved!"

"I think it's just to the train," said Sad-One. "The planet's suffering can't be stopped that easily."

"Hmm," Tulip deflated. Then she stopped. "Wait, can you make TWO portals leading here with one in, like, Appleton and one in New York, and then nobody would need to drive because they'd take a shortcut through this train! If you just put them next to each other it would basically be the same thing!"

"Like the legendary "train station", but real!" declared Atticus, tail wagging furiously. "And, you know, built using portals instead of flying leashes."

"I could do that! Mum, we should make a portal train station car!" One-One declared.

"Yeah! You could make one portal in every city! A new type of transportation with no carbon emissions," Tulip frowned. "I don't think one portal car will fit everybody, though. Maybe you'd need, like, two or three."

Amelia's eyes widened and she let in a little breath. "I made my robotic suit because I needed it to do everything I wanted to. I still have the files; I could make more for people with wheelchairs or other disabilities."

Tulip gasped with delight. "That's a great idea! You could even have a robot suit car! Or a robot suit-making-robot car that makes robots that made robot suits!"

"Imagine if you had entered that portal home and never thought about this, leaving the world in the same sad state it is right now," Sad-One mused.

"The portal!" Tulip gasped and turned to face it, her house visible within its spooky depths. "My parents must be super worried about me! I should probably go through and tell them I'm OK." She paused. "But then I can't come back here." 

Atticus walked over to her and gave a sad whine. Tulip looked up. "Or can I? One-One, the train stopped out in the woods for me. And it can definitely take people from the real world. Could you make a remote with a button that would call you and the train, and then we could program the button so that whenever it's pushed you could drive the train to where I am and pick me up? Then I could see you again whenever I want!"

"But if you lose it, you lose us..." said Sad-One.

"Well, uh, maybe it can teleport into my pocket if I ever lose it. Maybe we could make two remotes and give one to my reflection so she could use it too and see the world without needing to worry about getting lost somewhere. Oh, I should introduce you to Mikayla! She's my friend, and super cool, and she loves robots!"

"One-One," Atticus's royal voice barked out. "Now that you've found your mom, we could use this train's amazing powers of creation for the betterment of all people, everywhere. There's so much work to be done. Are you willing to help?"

"Absolutely!" came the chipper voice.

"Let's do this," nodded Tulip, turning to her friends. "Let's turn this creepy train into a cool world-saving machine! I'd be crazy to not use all this cool power!"

**Author's Note:**

> Blatant fix fic? heck yeah
> 
> I mean, I understand why the showrunners didn't want Tulip to single-handedly change the world as we know it by eliminating disease and also poverty and and also world hunger. That doesn't mean it won't cause me physical pain to see Tulip stop asking "Why?" only when near the only two people on the train capable of actually giving straight answers.
> 
> AU where Tulip slowly and laboriously complies with federal regulations to get her train-made food USDA-certified so she can legally distribute it plz


End file.
